


White Pony (The Men on the Chessboard Remix)

by celli



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: remix_redux, Community: remixredux05, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-14
Updated: 2007-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean only ever asked that Sam be where Dean expected him to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Pony (The Men on the Chessboard Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thepurpleswitch (andchimeras)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchimeras/gifts).
  * Inspired by [White Pony](https://archiveofourown.org/works/89680) by [thepurpleswitch (andchimeras)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchimeras/pseuds/thepurpleswitch). 



> Remix subtitle from Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit." Summary line from the original story. Thanks to my betas: [](http://rhymeswithhope.livejournal.com/profile)[**rhymeswithhope**](http://rhymeswithhope.livejournal.com/), [](http://slodwick.livejournal.com/profile)[**slodwick**](http://slodwick.livejournal.com/), and [](http://barely-bean.livejournal.com/profile)[**barely_bean**](http://barely-bean.livejournal.com/).

The storm kicked in as they crossed the border between Wisconsin and Illinois, giant flakes overwhelming the Impala's wipers while thunder pulsed in the distance. It was unseasonable even for this part of the country. Dean fought it in silence for forty-five minutes before ducking off the interstate onto a slightly slower highway.

"Huh," he said, peering out his side window. "I didn't think they had forests this close to Chicago." Snow-covered trees paced them on both sides, bare branches waving at them like bony hands on a skeleton.

"Hmm," Sam said, not really in response. Dean looked over to see him pulling at the sleeve of his jacket while he stared out the window. Dean started to say something, then shrugged and turned back to the road.

***

Dean had expected more, somehow; bolts of lighting, maybe, or an earthquake. Instead, there was just the gradual fading of the twilight, until the darkness surrounding him was complete. He blinked hard and crept one hand around to his back to brush up against his gun.

"I'm here," he called out, wincing at the odd echo. "Let's do this."

There was the faint but unmistakable sound of a horse's hooves.

***

"Come on, Dean! Let's play sheriff!"

"Sammy, you play Sheriff boring."

"Do not!"

"Do too! Your sheriff never catches any ghosts or werewolves or anything! You just play stupid old regular Sheriff."

"I wanna be stupid old regular Sheriff!"

"No."

"Please? Please please?"

"Fine. But just because you're a big baby about it."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

  
***

 _Dean Winchester._

"That's--" Dean swallowed. His eyes strained for a glimmer of light that wasn't there. "I'm Dean Winchester."

Silence.

"I'm here about my brother," Dean said into the darkness. There was a faint vibration in the air that made his back teeth ache. "Sam Winchester."

He got a sense of motion, and the smell of horses got stronger. _What about Sam Winchester's life would you have me change?_

"Everything," Dean said without thinking.

***

The light from the truck behind them bounced Sam's reflection off the windshield. Dean rubbed his thumb over the silver coin in his hand and stared straight ahead, out at the snow.

"Any ideas on how we're going to break into the Wrigley Building to catch this ghost?"

Sam didn't respond for a while. Just as Dean was about to beat his head on the steering wheel in frustration, he said, "I think the MIB routine ought to work this time. Either FBI or Homeland Security."

"Yeah, we could mock up suspicious pictures of the thirteenth floor, and I could do a threatening note. Cut-up letters from newspapers, the whole nine yards."

Sam's reflection smiled faintly. "It could work."

Dean relaxed a little, but as soon as they'd planned out everything he could think of to plan, Sam lapsed into silence again.

***

The silence was long enough that Dean shifted uncomfortably, squinting a bit as if that could help him see.

 _You haven't asked how you will change,_ the darkness said.

"Me?" Dean's shoulders jerked back.

 _What changes your brother changes what surrounds him._

Dean was silent for a long, long time.

***

"That way!"

There was a flash of light as the ghost disappeared into the abandoned farmhouse. Dean just barely beat Sam to the front door. "Go around back!" he shouted. "I'll flush it out!"

"Dean--"

But Dean was already through the door, trying to muffle his breathing as he crept gun-first down the hallway. If he could just catch it off guard enough to send it out the back--

The roar and the blow were simultaneous, drowning out Dean's own cry of pain. He slammed into the wall and dropped to the floor. He just managed to keep hold of his gun, but pain shot up his arm and shoulder and his vision grayed alarmingly when he tried to raise it.

The ghost screamed again, and Dean braced himself--

\--and the ghost vanished as Sam fired from just behind him.

"You okay?" Sam asked, leaning over him.

Dean fought for breath. "Funny," he panted, "this doesn't look like the back door."

"Idiot. Come on, let's get out of here and go find the bones." Sam wedged a hand under Dean's shoulders and started pulling him to his feet.

***

Dean tried not to ask, but the question came out anyway. "What happens to the people?" he blurted. A little boy next to a lake, a girl tied to a tree, a barber's razor, a website. "What happens to the people we're not there to save?"

The darkness seemed to shift around him. _There are other hunters._

"But--that doesn't answer my question."

 _No._

***

Like most eighteen-year-old boys, Sam usually made enough noise to wake the dead, the living, and their next-door neighbors in the morning. Somehow, though, Dean wasn't surprised when he woke up to find Sam's bed empty and his father staring blankly out the window.

"Dad?"

"He'll come back," his father said without turning toward him. "This is the life he's meant for. He'll figure it out and come back." He got up and started for the door. "Get your things, we leave in half an hour. We have work to do."

Dean waited until the room was empty before he said under his breath, "He won't."

***

 _Sam must agree, as well. You can only offer him the choice. He must take it._

"He'll do it," Dean said quietly.

There was a flare of light, searing through Dean's eyelids and the hands he put up to protect his face. He dropped his hands cautiously as the light faded; he could barely make out a glimmer of white in the distance.

He stooped and picked up the silver medallion that hadn't been on the ground before. It was just slightly warm to the touch, and the shape of a horse etched into it matched the one he'd drawn in the earth.

"Ride the white pony," he muttered to himself.

***

"What's that?" Sam asked.

Dean flipped the medallion over in his hand. "State quarter. Where to after this, have you thought about it yet?"

"Well, there's some disappearances in Bee Caves, Texas that might be supernaturally related. Homeless people, household pets, that kind of thing."

Dean stared out the window into the snow. "Bring it on."


End file.
